Northwest Guilford HS newspaper receives technology grant

The SIPA Endowment awarded its fifth annual technology grant to the Northwest Horizons at Northwest Guilford High School in Greensboro, North Carolina.

“My journalism program (and school as a whole) is notoriously underfunded,” Melanie
Huynh-Duc, Northwest Horizons adviser, said in her application. “We receive zero dollars each year. We raise the
money on our own from ad sales, chocolate bar sales, car washes, dodge ball tournaments,
etc., which enables us to pay for our publication costs and web hosting fee each year.
But we rarely have ‘leftover’ funds for big purchases like computers, software or
a camera.”

Each year, SIPA’s Endowment awards $500 to a high school journalism program in need
of enhancing its technology. Huynh-Duc and the staff of Northwest Horizons, a print and online news outlet, will be able to buy a second camera with the grant
money.

“We currently have one DSLR camera (with a separate zoom lens), and it never stays
sedentary because students are constantly checking it out for their stories,” Huynh-Duc
said in her application. "To enhance the equity of access among my students, a second
DSLR camera would greatly help in ensuring every student can capture a great photo
for their story.”

“For years, we solely operated on cell phone photos – which is fine in a pinch – but
in order to meet my students’ needs and better fulfill scholastic media standards,
having a second DSLR camera would double our potential for great photos.”

SIPA’s Endowment awards the grant annually with winners selected through an application
process starting about January and ending May 1. Winners are announced in the fall.

“Over the past five years, the number of programs that have applied for the grant
has increased,” Leslie Dennis, Director of Scholastic Media Organizations, said. “The
Endowment and its support to schools, journalism programs and student journalists
is critical. SIPA wants to help programs when they have to make an investment in equipment
in order to give student journalists experience and to keep our students on a level
playing field with their journalism peers.”

Huynh-Duc will speak at the 2019 SIPA Convention about how the grant helped her staff cover news at her school.